Who Are We?

As the title suggests, whilst we may compete in Surf Life-Saving events and enjoy a good night out occasionally, our real purpose is, is to SAVE lives, and to achieve this we do two things.

Firstly we patrol Aberdeen beach on weekends during the summer months. With increasing resources due to generous local and national sponsorships, we are able to patrol the whole of Aberdeen beach using our Inflatable rescue boat and a host of rescue boards and skis, offering a full Beach Lifeguard patrol. All club members on patrol are qualified to SLSGB Beach Lifeguard standards, and we take our duties very seriously. This has become even more of an issue, since the City Council withdrew their official Beach Lifeguard Service. We have assessed all of Aberdeen beach for risks which you can read about this in our Beach Risk Assessment.
Secondly we train up anybody who wishes to qualify as a Beach Lifeguard or just wishes to know more about the things we do. We run training on Sundays at 11:00 am and certain evenings during the week from 6:00 pm. The training works towards achieving the full Beach Lifeguard award which means you can work as a Beach Lifeguard anywhere in the world. Although why you’d want to swap the delights of Aberdeen beach for Bondi, is beyond us! We also train for driving and crewing the Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB), VHF radio qualifications, first aid, advanced resuscitation amongst other qualifications.

Interested in joining and becoming a Beach Lifeguard? If you are or just want to get more information, please get in touch, as we are always on the look-out for new members and the more people that are trained in these essential skills, hopefully the lower the number of accidental drownings there will be.

How the Leopard got it’s spots – Some of the story below is true

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away………well, a few years back anyway – Let me check and I’ll get back to you – Our club was formed. Naturally, we adopted the Leopard as our mascot – A creature known for it’s love of cold sea water. So, Aberdeen Surf Life Saving Club became “The Leopards”. But what was the real reason we chose our name?

If you didn’t already know Aberdeen City’s Coat of Arms features two leopards

Not too many people know why they’re there: According to legend the beasts were granted by James I to Aberdeen as the burgh underwrote his expenses while in exile in England. Over the years the decendants of the original pair of leopards (Nargis and Jocuum) have been looked after by the city elders. However, in recent times budgetary cutbacks and increased health and safety legislation meant that the remaining Big Cat was no longer able to be cared for and had to be housed in a secure lock-up on the beach front. When Aberdeen Surf Life Saving Club took over the use of the beachfront lock-up a proviso was made that they would look after this poor but much loved creature.

During the out of season months you will probably the hardy members of our club either fundraising to pull together enough money to feed her or out in the sea hunting for seals and other marine mammals (mostly on Sunday’s). During the Patrol Season, July and August, we generally feed her any lost children we have left over at the end of the day.

We like to think we’re one of the only surf life saving clubs in the UK, if not the World, who has a wild untamed Cat as club secretary.

Useless Fact

There is enough water in Loch Ness (7.4 km³) to completely submerge the human race thre times over – We’re gonna need a bigger boat!